Julian Assange, The Pussy Riot & The Irony Of Diplomacy

THE ‘COOL’ WAR

Julian Assange, The Pussy Riot & The Irony Of Diplomacy

By Elizabeth C.

HERE’S A KNEESLAPPER TO BEGIN YOUR FRIDAY: Russia, which just convicted the girls’ rock band Pussy Riot for mocking President Putin in song, has issued a warning to the U.K. about its threat to storm the Ecuadorian embassy where WikiLeaks’ founder is holed up interminably.

Britain turned the diplomatic globe upside down and shook it when it sent a letter to the Ecuadoran government implicitly warning that it could revoke its diplomatic privileges and storm inside to capture Julian Assange, granted asylum by the Latin American country. Assange is wanted for questioning related to two sex cases in Sweden, but many political observers believe that his real crime, figuratively speaking, is publishing U.S. military and diplomatic secrets.

But the U.K.’s threat to arrest Assange inside the protected quarters of London’s Equadoran embassy has rattled nations worldwide. Such an unprecedented move would open up virtually every embassy in other countries to similar and or retaliatory claims.

On Friday, Russia’s foreign ministry reminded U.K. of international law and warned that it was treading dangerously by applying its own laws selectively, pointedly remarking that London has given asylum to “dozens of people suspected of committing grave crimes.”

“What is happening gives grounds to contemplate the observance of the spirit and the letter of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and in particular the Article 22 spelling out the inviolability of diplomatic premises,” the ministry said.

The kicker is that the warning comes the same day three girl musicians from the Pussy Riot are sentenced to two years in prison for publicly speaking out against Putin. A judge ruled that the three had “crudely undermined social order” when it sang anti-Putin songs in a Russian Orthodox Church last February. The sentence provoked cries of “shame!” inside the courtroom and clashes with police outside.

Now if the Pussy Rioters could escape just long enough to flee to the British Embassy in Moscow we’ll have a real international event on our hands.

Who knew there would come a time when we would be nostalgic for world equalibrium that came from battling superpowers?